A headline currently running on the entertainment industry website Variety boldly reads, “Survey: Faith-Driven Consumers Dissatisfied with ‘Noah,’ Hollywood Religious Pics”. According to the article, “The religious organization [Faith-Driven Consumers] found in a survey that 98% of its supporters were not “satisfied” with Hollywood’s take on religious stories such as Noah.” The only problem is, the movie isn’t out yet. And, unless those answering the question were one of the very few who saw an early version of the film in test screenings, there’s a 100% chance they haven’t seen the movie they are dissatisfied with.

It turns out, the “survey” is actually just a single, extremely leading question posted on their website: “As a Faith Driven Consumer, are you satisfied with a Biblically themed movie–designed to appeal to you–which replaces the Bible’s core message with one created by Hollywood?” Totally fair, right? Even though there has been some debate about early versions of the script—in which director Darren Aronofsky is said to rely heavily on environmental themes—a recent Hollywood Reporter article demonstrated that some of the negative feedback from Christian audiences was unfounded: “In some cases, [Paramount Vice Chair Rob] Moore [who is a Christian] says, ‘people had recollections of the story that weren't actually correct.’” For example, some audiences had a problem with the scene in which Noah got drunk, because they didn’t know that was part of the Biblical story. When Noah hits theaters on March 28, it is possible that the film will contain messages that some Christians will legitimately take issue with, but trying to derail the movie before it’s even out by misleading “surveys”, at this point, seems misguided …

Why do we as Christians so often get our panties in a knot over Hollywood stuff? Yes, it might not be 100% accurate, but so what? No movie is going to convince someone that Jesus is the way. It might start conversations but the church is supposed to represent who God is, but we constantly expect culture to do it for us.

I was happy to see a Noah movie deal with the Nephilim (Watchers). They are a biblical oddity that people erase from the story, but it's there! If you are interested in further research on them, check out the Jewish apocryphal Book of Enoch, quoted in Jude 1:14-15.